It has been quite some time since I last blogged and that will not happen again, well barring any emergencies at least. I have received the first draft of my new cookbook, and although I have already edited the book, it looks wonderful and reads like a charm. I am proud of this work. I know with time I will only get better. I have been investigating, reading and researching what makes a really good cookbook and besides, realistic ingredients, a topic that is of interest to the reader, simplicity, affordable foodstuffs and ease of preparation I don't know what else would do it. Do you? I know a number of people purchase cookbooks for the photographs, and some years ago, I did the same thing. Today however, I purchase books that help me make good food. I have more years behind me than ahead of me, so I have to grab for all the gusto I can and I want cookbooks that work.
How do you sell a self-published book? I am going to ask five people to review the book and tell five others. If five more people tell five folks each that’s twenty five people who know about and possibly would purchase my book. If those twenty five tell five people each, well you see where I am going with this. Of course the book has to be of value to someone and people should have a true desire to purchase it. I have faith in God and in mankind that those who really want to buy the book will and will tell others.
I recently asked a member of the Lulu.com community who has been writing via Lulu.com for several years if his books sell and he said he usually sells about 50 books, but you have to get out there and market your own book. Well, duh of course you do. I am ready for this challenge. There are so few cookbooks out there written by Black folks, particularly good books; and I don’t mean celebrities either. I don’t know if anyone reading this blog knows Edna Lewis, (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/14/national/14lewis.html) but her first cookbook which I picked up for a mere $4.50 almost twenty years ago is now worth $299.70 and she was retired when I first learned of her.
I wish I could convince more of my people to put their life story on paper. My dad always told me there is power in the pen, apparently, prosperity too. Black people are powerful people, with amazing stories of survival and triumph. How will our children ever know what we have designed, created, and changed to make the world a better place if we don’t tell them? You have to tell your store, just do it. You don’t have to be a great writer, just be honest and forthright. What our children seek is truth, words of wisdom and someone to show them the way. Who can better do that than the generation that came before them? If I write excellent cookbooks, it will surely set the way for some young person in 2050 to writer superior cookbooks… and our history, our legacy continues. My life and the life of those before me would have been in vain.
